


The Cupcake Mafia

by Siria



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 04:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And after all, Watson,” Sherlock said, clapping his flour-dusty hands, “on a most basic level, cooking is just chemistry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cupcake Mafia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calvinahobbes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calvinahobbes/gifts).



> Written to a prompt by Calvinahobbes; thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing.

“And after all, Watson,” Sherlock said, clapping his flour-dusty hands, “on a most basic level, cooking is just chemistry.”

“False equivalency,” Joan mumbled around her spoonful of Nutella. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest of lunches, but it had been a long week and Joan couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for any form of physical exertion.

Sherlock arched an eyebrow at her. 

“Well,” she elaborated once she’d swallowed, “that’s like saying van Gogh dabbed things with paint. Technically true, but there’s a big difference between ‘Starry Night’ and me repainting my bedroom.”

Sherlock’s head bobbed. “I concede the accuracy of your logic, but this is an empirical endeavour. I stand firm in my profession of confidence.”

“You do that,” Joan said. She dug her spoon back into the jar, flipped to the next page in the magazine she was reading. “But I still think you’re aiming too high.”

“If I’m to gain entrance to a group which aggressively prides itself on the quality of its baked goods and which is noticeably cliquish towards outsiders—”

“They’re hardly the Cupcake Mafia, Sherlock.”

“I’m fully aware that you were being flippant, Watson, but in actual fact that name may be more accurate than you realise.”

Joan squinted at him. “You’re trying to tell me that a parent and toddler playgroup organised by Type A hipster parents in Brooklyn is actually a front for the mob?”

“To be precise,” Sherlock said, checking to see if the oven had fully heated, “a Ukrainian organised crime syndicate.”

“Huh.” Joan wouldn’t have thought that mobsters would be so keen on Instagramming pictures of their quinoa salad or decrying the horrors of Mumford and Sons. Clearly she’d been unwittingly stereotyping one group, though she wasn’t really sure which one. 

“So a selection of tartes tatins in a variety of flavours seemed the ideal choice,” Sherlock said, sliding the cake tins into the oven and closing the door with a satisfied grunt. 

“Oh, well obviously,” Joan said dryly. 

“Your sarcasm is noted but not appreciated,” Sherlock said as he removed his apron. Joan had no idea where he’d found an apron in a house that had an ironing board but no iron, and where Sherlock had often been known to open tinned food with a chisel in the absence of a functioning can opener. 

“I’m just preparing you,” Joan said, flipping to the next page in her magazine, “for what Gregson’s going to say when he finds out you’re planning on going undercover with the mob armed only with an apple pie.” 

“Oh ye of little faith,” Sherlock said. 

“But hey,” Joan said, “if you’re confident that your baking skills are going to let you infiltrate the Cupcake Mafia…”

“It’s entirely empirical, I assure you,” Sherlock said. And then something indefinable shifted in his stance—he grew looser, his shoulders more rounded, his head was held at a different angle, and when he spoke, his voice had lost all its clipped British tones in favour of something flat and Midwestern. “I mean, it’s all about getting back to the authentic, right? I just find that hand rolling your own dough, it lets you be authentic in the midst of the generic, you know?”

Joan stared at him. “Never do that again,” she said.

Sherlock shook out his upper body, regarded her once more with that keen stare. “Absolutely basic,” he said. “Chemistry and physics.”

“Uh huh,” Joan said, peering around Sherlock to eye the goings on in the oven. "Did you get the equivalencies right?"

“I don’t follow,” Sherlock said. 

“The recipe you were following,” Joan said, “was it British?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, fingers wiggling a little from impatience. “But I did convert it, thank you.”

“Did you remember that US measurements work by volume, not by mass?”

There was a moment’s pause. “Ah,” Sherlock said. 

In the interests of empirical accuracy, this required them to call this round a trial run, and to taste test the tarts once they had cooked. “I mean,” Joan said, cutting herself a generous slice of the apricot one, “you wouldn’t want to give the mob some badly cooked pastry.”

“Mmpfh,” Sherlock said around his mouthful of apple and pastry, pushing the small jug of cream over to her. “No, no, that’d be a terrible decision. Important to be certain of one’s accuracy, Watson, you’re right.”

Joan grinned at him and then dug into her own tart. This job really did have its unexpected perks.


End file.
